Cherished swan (the sound of your voice is all I live on)
by S. Vespertine
Summary: Ficlet from Killian's POV following the events of 6x01 The Savior, as he first reacts to Emma pushing him away again, and then tries to find out what she won't tell him. Spoilers ahead. Smut rating. First OUAT fic written, so please tell me what you think of the characterisations :) Will possibly turn this into a multi-chapter so stay tuned!


**AN:** follows the events of **6x01 "The Savior"** , mostly told from Killian's point of view as he reacts to Emma pushing him away, and then fighting to find out what she won't tell him. Spoilers if you haven't watched the season 6 premiere. Smut ahead. Please note this is a work of fiction based on characters and a story that does not belong to me and is property of ABC studios.

Enjoy and let me know what you think please, this is my first time writing OUAT.

* * *

Fatality is a word that he's been intimately acquainted with for years.

Sure, like any self-respecting man willing to fight for what he wants, he'll act like destiny is only forged by a man's own strength; in reality though, he knows well and fine that Fate is a mistress never to tempt, or forget.

So when they're confronted once again with the prospect of long, hard conflict, this time in the guise of Mr. Hyde - and all that it entails - Killian knew Fate had come harvesting again. And he's learned his lesson by now, because hundreds of years of existence have taught him things that some couldn't learn in three lifetimes.

He's far more observant than the rest of them, though he hides it well, and as they all poke around the wrecked remains of the abandoned sky vessel - a dirige-a-what? - he doesn't lose track of any of the others' movements. Especially the good doctor's because, after all, it's really thanks to him that they're in such a fine mess, what with having created the damn man in the first place. They're talking about using what can be salvaged from the wreck as the (only?) possible weapon they have against Hyde - and that's when it happens. David flicks a piece of metal away and the noise is sharp enough that those in the vicinity flinch his way. Killian starts round in tandem with the others, and out of the periphery of his eye, he sees her. She quickly becomes the object of his sole focus.

Then he can't look away. She flinches and suddenly gets a remote look in her eyes, her face paling with each passing second. He registers surprise. Then wariness. Finally her fear. Two strides take him clear across the thicket and in front of Emma in no time at all, his watchful stare tuning out everything and everyone else. By the time he reaches her, deep, deep down, he knows he's too late; her face takes on that _carefully_ constructed blank look, and her mouth - the radiantly smiling mouth he'd kissed and kissed and kissed not ten minutes before - folds into the grim, vulnerable line he's come to know and dread. Something is wrong. She's _afraid._ In her eyes, he now sees again the light he thought had been banished for good, the one which told him upon first meeting her that she was a lost girl.

The fire in his gut churns and his limbs buzz in reaction, but his voice and his body language are steady; her anchor to his sails. Her mother's casual voice sounds somewhere in the vicinity of his back as he reaches her. "Hey Emma, you okay?" He ignores Snow and speaks to Emma, his voice low and concerned, his eyes watchful and sharp. "Love? What happened?"

Everything in him strains forward towards her, all of his senses sharpening, his blood thickening, rearing for a fight, for protection, to defend her. But he's helpless as she reverts back to her old self in one instant, and it's like the months fall away, and suddenly she's closed off and remote, distant and cool like a star again. Frustration and real worry war inside him at once, because he knows, he always knows, even if she thinks she can just casually brush it off like it was nothing - and lo and behold, she _does_ \- but it's not nothing, not to thim. Not a thing that concerns Emma is ever _nothing_ to Killian.

And there. The tell-tale rapid flicker of her eyes as they zoom away and then up at him again, when she's ready. "Nothing." His mouth tightens. His muscles turn stiff but his years as a fearsome pirate captain have honed his body and his mind with sharp efficiency, so he tamps down on his clamouring instincts, remaining outwardly collected. But his eyes betray some of the hurt disappointment - they surely do, because Emma can't look at his face again knowing what she's done. "Come on, let's keep looking.", she says side-stepping the issue. Literally.

She walks around him, outwardly appearing as if carefully measuring her step on the forest terrain, but he _knows_ , of course he knows, that actually what she's really doing is making sure to step well clear of him, always careful, oh-so-careful (when she's pulling away) not to touch him.

 _Don't. Do not let her out of your sight._

Killian turns with her and stares after her retreating back, knowing that they're playing the old game again but with all these people around them he's unable to call her out on it just yet. Everyone else is, as always, completely oblivious, even her own mother. His eyes rest on her quickly retreating figure all the while, and when she's out of his immediate sight his gut drops and turns to lead. He grimly resumes his task, appearing as if nothing more than the reappearance of a new foe is wrong. But this is far from over, Killian promises himself.

* * *

By the time he finally catches up to her again and they're alone, it's night, the forest is dark and freezing, and he just needs her to stop fighting for a moment so he can make whatever it is better. He just wants to go home, where things have been going slow but great, where they've been happy. He can approach the subject better in their own sanctuary, where they can both be calm and she won't feel like she has to run off anywhere. And then Emma says that she'd rather he go on ahead - without her. She wants to be alone.

Really, Killian's patience can only hold out so long "Are you really that desperate to avoid talking to me?"

Emma gives him her best puzzled expression. As if she expected him to actually fall for it. As if he doesn't know her every curve and crevice and edge and fault, or know how to read her like a sextant. "I'm not avoiding talking to you."

She denies it to his face? She has the gall to deny to him that something's been off with her all day and it's eating away at her, making her distracted, making her lose her edge, her focus her - her ...

Killian subconsciously holds his breath as his eyes zero in on her right hand - the hand that's clearly shaking out of her control. He grows alarmed. "I ... need to be alone."

"Emma, look at your hand." He should have got a prize for the level quality to his tone of voice, when he's striving so very hard to remain calm. Emma clutches her wrist with her other hand, and that alone makes him angrier than is advisable because he knows that this needs to be handled very delicately or she'll bolt again - but he can't help it. She's _still_ trying to act like everything is fine, when _she's_ bloody not!

"What the hell is going on with you?"

"Nothing."

Oh no she doesn't. She doesn't get to do this with him, dammit. "You can lie to everyone else but you can't lie to _me_."

She's twitching so much it's painful to watch, knowing that she's fast retreating behind her walls, where he can't reach her, but it's nowhere near as painful as what she says next. "It's fine. I already asked you once to go." All the while clutching her hand with the other and staring down at the ground.

And it's safe to say she's won this round. Message received, loud and clear. "Right. No need to ask again." And he does exactly what she did a few hours before. He skirts around her and leaves. But just because she feels like she can't rely on him with whatever this is just yet, prefers to sound the bugle and retreat into herself, doesn't mean he'll just stand by and watch it happen without a fight. So he lets her off the hook, so to speak, and allows Emma to withdraw. For now.

* * *

When she finds him, he's sitting at Grannie's nursing a couple glasses of rum. He turns at the sound of the bells as the door opens, but he doesn't need to see who just walked in. She makes a beeline straight to his side. Killian's mouth pulls down at the corners as he faces the counter, wasting no time in giving her a piece of his mind. "Thought you needed to be alone." Now he's the one who's careful to maintain their distance. Maybe it's petty, but ... he's hurt by her behaviour. He thought they were past such things after his return from the Underworld. Or he did, until he saw her take a hit and absorb the blow then run away to lick at her wounds in private, where no one could hurt her, like she always did when he met her. After today Killian knows that just because he's been damn lucky enough to find True Love, doesn't mean it's the end of all their hardship, both from without and within, it seems.

She takes the spot next to him and answers, sounding lighthearted, if tired. "Changed my mind. Can I have one of those?"

Killian steals a heavy-lidded look at her face, trying to gauge her status. She _seems_ fine, he'll give her that, and wordlessly passes over one of the rum glasses he's ordered. As if he didn't know that she'd be coming back to him soon enough, a pretty word of apology on her lips, which he would readily accept and they could bond over shared rum once more. He doesn't tell her this. If she wonders why he was nursing two glasses instead of a double shot, she doesn't let it show.

"You're in a better mood." Killian remarks casually, as if they'd been talking about the weather.

"You were right. I just needed to get help. I went back to Archie and figured everything out." Emma looks into his eyes the whole time, the apology plain for him to see. But his main concern is something else. "Your hand?" He sounds skeptical, and he knows it. But there's no way it could have been that easy, it never is with Emma, so he's a bit leery of letting her end the discussion with "I'm fine" once more.

"It's just stress."

Killian raises his eyebrow at her, sensing bullshit like he knows it's going to be really cold tonight and even colder tomorrow. "You sure that's all it was? Stress?" He could let it go, of course. But then she would win, she and her erroneous methods of coping, and he can't allow her to continue defaulting to them anymore. He was worried about her, sensed there was lots more that he was missing, but would meet her halfway just now and declare a truce.

As if sensing just how worried about her and hurt he was by her reaction today, Emma bends towards him, and he automatically leans in closer because after keeping him away all day she's initiating contact herself - but still manages to be surprised when she kisses his cheek, and can't help the slight upwards curve of his lips.

They then finish their drinks and sometime after that join the welcome wagon efforts with the new citizens. Killian lets her have her space, though she chooses to stay by his side, a little smile on her face, he notes gladly. At least she's smiling again. And whatever is coming, he'll not leave her to face it alone, no matter what she thinks she may want.

* * *

When he lets her pull them away and make their way home, Killian already has a strategy in place to get her to talk to him. He's not entirely convinced at the explanation she gave him at Grannie's, and since talking to Archie is going to have to wait until tomorrow, he lets her believe he accepted her reasons. They cross the threshold of the place they've been calling their home - it still sits alien on his tongue - the shift is almost immediate. Just that morning they'd been happily making out like adolescents on the sofa, reveling in each other's presence after all they'd fought through to get here, and now here was the next big bad trying to knock down the foundations of their life.

Killian takes off his clothes in the master bathroom and steps into the warm spray of the shower, eyes closed. He'll make it subtle - it's his only defence against her walls, that and patience - but he would dismantle the barrier she'd hidden behind, and he _would_ find out what was wrong. He had his suspicions of course, but it wasn't fair to believe them wholeheartedly. That would mean giving in to the insecurity caused by the thought that maybe it was all going a bit too fast for her, and she wanted them to back up for now. Just the thought of being separated from her again made his jaw clench. If subtlety and patience didn't do the trick he had a whole arsenal waiting to be pulled out his sleeves and she wouldn't know what hit her; he wanted to make it so that she wouldn't ever revert back to hiding again, like that was no longer something she needed to fall back on to get by (because she had him now, he would shoulder her fights and burdens happily for the rest of their lives). But Killian knew that this wasn't truly realistic. It would take time. It would take effort. Lucky for him, he'd never backed away from a fight, especially one for his love.

He's momentarily surprised into immobility as he feels her slender hands rest on his back, tentative and soft. Her front plasters to the length of his back and then he feels her press a kiss under his shoulder blades. He turns around and _she_ 's there, the side of her he'd given his very life for, the warm, caring, open young radiant woman who was all blonde hair and grace and love, and he knows he's done for. With a muttered curse he swoops down and their lips fuse together, tongues exploring. He's about to combust, and she's turning into a firebrand in his arms.

Her slick flesh fans his ardour, and his hand is everywhere, seductive and hot, tender and possessive, and the little sounds she makes egg him on. When she lifts her leg to wrap around his hip he uses his stumped wrist to hitch it higher as his fingers home in on her quim. Emma shudders as he lowers his head to graze his teeth on her nipple, rising up on her tiptoes to find purchase, but not afraid of letting him take their combined weight. She knows he'll never let her fall. When he Killian holds her in his arms, her feet never touch the ground. She's safe. She's home.

His fingers stroke her lips delicately and she's panting with need, sharing his breath in a sloppy kiss, and when thrusts them inside and start playing with her, she happily loses herself to his mastery, knowing he can't get enough of her as badly as she can't get enough of him. Her hands wander towards the erection pressing into her belly but suddenly he steps back and denies her the touch. Emma mewls in protest, knees doing their best to support her full weight again. Killian wet and in lust, is a beautiful sight to behold. Her pulse stutters and her chest constricts at the sight. Honed body from years of labour and adventures and toil at sea. Dark wisps of hair lusciously clinging to his sculpted chest and trailing finely down below his navel, the delectable narrow V of his hips that she just can't wait to taste, his powerful lean legs, and all the while he's appraising her just as much, the blue in his eyes almost completely faded to black. Her hands stick to the glass wall behind her, in vain trying to help her stand up. When he looks at her like that, it's like being a delicious morsel offered up to a starving man waiting to devour her.

Holding his gaze, Emma slowly slides her hands up her ribcage and cups her own breasts in her soft palms, fingers skimming gently over her sensitive nipples, imagining his touch on her. And he knows what she's imagining, the dark devil. Killian shuts off the water and grabs her hips, clutching her close to kiss her passionately. Then they're swaying backwards and he confidently manouvers them out of the ensuite towards their bed. There he spins them again and sits down on the edge of the mattress, still locked in the embrace. Emma all but climbs him in order to maintain their closeness and straddles his thighs, twining her hands around his neck and kissing him for all that she is worth. Their hips rock together and she mewls at the friction, needing him closer, closer. "Killian..."

"I've got you love." He rasped, sliding his hand up her ribcage and cupping her breast, kneading with gentle fingers, his cool metal rings tantalising on her heated flesh. His mouth broke off from their kiss and he wrapped his lips around her nipple, causing her hips to roll and her back to arch slightly. The delectable little hums she made were like music to his ears, and he loved plucking her strings to his pleasure. He loved her. He loved her. So much, she still didn't quite know what to do with it, that much was obvious. But she'd learn.

She writhed sensually on his lap, and it was torture to him too. Killian resisted the dominant urge to just spread her open and fuck her into oblivion, into a realm where barriers no longer existed to separate her from him, but his self-discipline, despite how badly she tested it, wasn't gone quite yet, and he bided his time.

He teased and tormented her, eliciting a primal response she couldn't hold back, basking in her pleasured moans and frustrated little sobs when he didn't go all the way and gave her what she needed. When she simply opened her eyes and gazed into his, he drank in the sight of her like this, her eyes glittering like jewels, her face and throat flushed red from passion, her lips swollen red from his kisses. He was just as drugged as she was. He returned his fingers to her melting little pot, stroking and rubbing, growling when she bit her lower lip and looked at him from under heavy lids, sighs of pleasure escaping her mouth. "Hunh...yeah..." She moaned, rolling her hips and riding his fingers. When he withdrew them and brought them up to his lips to lick them clean, her eyes dilated to pure black not two inches from his, and his reaction to that went visceral, no longer able to deny his need to stake his claim on her and fuse them together.

He set her arms away from his neck on his knees behind her and she quickly caught on, adjusting her position and gripping his legs with her hands, rolling her hips erotically towards him, entrancing him. He held her gaze, making sure she kept the eye-contact and licked his fingers again before returning them to her labia, spreading her juices thoroughly. Then he placed his hand on her hip and bore her down towards his lap as he lunged upwards, entering her smoothly, savouing the sensation. He groaned at the intimacy of the position, allowing him to see her take his length, her torso quivering, her blonde hair reaching to tease his thighs, her face upturned and thrown back on a thrilled moan at the feel of him inside her. Gods, he loved her like this, all fire and sweetness, no masks or walls to hide behind. They set their rhythm and started rocking together. He kept his hand on her hip, ensuring that his re-entering her on every thrust was sharp, and Emma mewled at the forceful goodness of it deep inside, rocking backwards and forwards, riding him to climax.

Then he set his legs to work too and began bouncing her, his head thrown back, eyes closed. She felt her heart tremble with emotion as her body shook with pleasure, sobbing that it was so good, that she loved it, and he was undoing her little by little. He whispered back what it felt like for him, how deep he was in this position, how slick and hot and beautiful she was. "Yes...yes...yessss..." She cried at every sharp thrust and mewled at every slow deep grind, working herself on top of him as much as he allowed, because he still held her steady through all of this, relentlessly driving her out of her mind with pleasure, his eyes hot and boring into her. Emma understood she was being possessed, and that she possessed him just as much, that he was trying to come inside her, and not with his body, he was trying to penetrate her barriers and into her soul, there to stay where she couldn't drive him out again, but was helpless to stop it in the face of mind-numbing pleasure.

Then he abruptly switched tacticts and swivelled them around, lying her on the bed and spreading her legs further to accommodate his body. Emma's heart stuttered at suddenly having him loom so close again, his intense eyes, his face screwing up in pleasure as he drove into her long and hard, incoherent soft sounds spilling out of his throat. She leaned upwards and kissed him sloppily, needing the air but wanting to share his.

Then the devil trapped one of her lithe legs in the crook of his elbow and pushed it up so her knee rested on his shoulders, and Emma cried out, her vice shrill, at the delicious goodness of it, adjusting to take him even deeper than she'd ever done before. Her Killian ... so passionate ... so good...she needed him, god she needed him so much...but she couldn't let him become even more entrenched into her soul than he already was ... it wouldn't be fair to him when she...

Killian growled and changed his pace, going forceful and relentless, bordering on pain. "Tell me what you're thinking, love."

Emma's inner bells were going off somewhere distantly into the back of her mind, but she was just slightly preoccupied with other things just now, and couldn't get her brain to work properly.

But still, she couldn't tell him. She couldn't make him face that, when she herself needed to understand, needed to deal with it by herself before she tainted him with the knowledge that they were now living on borrowed time. So, she told him the next closest thing. "I love you."

"The truth, Swan. Tell me!" He cried out, unwilling to give up.

Emma stared into his beautiful blue eyes, stormy and intense with turmoil and pleasure, and whispered, her heart shining through hers, "I love you, Killian."

"Emma ... "

"I love you...Killian...I will always love you."

"Please...love...tell me..."

They were reaching their climax together. Her orgasm was nearly upon her, and she struggled to keep her eyes on his, making incoherent noises, feeling a warm tide lashing out at her, sweeping her under, and still he kept his pace, and it was all she could do to keep up, sobbing, and their fingers intertwined tightly, and her heart broke at the desperation lurking in his eyes, knowing he sensed something was seriously amiss. Her hips locked into place and her back bowed, his name a scream torn from her throat, fighting thr black spots appearing in her vision, feeling ike her heart was going to beat a mad gallop bursting out of her ribcage, the most intense orgasm of her life. Killian sensed too that this was a turning point for them and roared as her walls rippled aroung his length, and he felt his cum welling up from deep inside him, clutching her closer and staying inside her for the first time, her walls milking him of every drop.

They were exhausted both from the day's ordeals, the acrobatics of their newly-intense lovemaking and their emotional states. He found the strength to roll them over onto their sides, clutching her to his fratically beating heart, his hand tangled in her hair, hers holding him.

Neither of them had given in. She still refused to let him in past the wall he was trying to knock down and not end up in the moat. The aftershocks of their orgasm still rippled in them, but they couldn't hide what was happening.

Later, Emma seemed to fall into a bone-weary sleep, but Killian lay awake. He covered them both and kept her hand on his chest, cushioning her head on his arm, thinking. Even out of her mind with pleasure, Emma still hadn't relented. But if she thought he was so easily swayed, she'd have another thing coming. There were still plenty of ways in which he could shock his beautiful princess, and he planned to use every trick in the book, or play dirty if necessary, though he wanted her to come to him, not scheme up ways of making her.

Just as he was falling asleep, her fingers tickled his chest hair. He fumbled with his own fingers to still hers, eyes closed - only to inhale sharply and snap them open when he felt her hand trembling in his despite his grip. He looked down at his chest, his gut turning to lead, to see her hand shaking involuntarily as it had done in the forest, _even in her sleep._ No matter how he clasped her hand with his, the tremors did not abate. Emma slept on. And Killian, cradling her close, was terrified down to his marrow.

* * *

 **SO. Did I do right to the characters or what? R &R ;)**


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